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Who has heard Olatunji's "Soul Makossa"?


JSngry

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olatunjisoulmakossa.jpg

 

Olatunji - Soul Makossa (Paramount PA 6061)

 

Personnel

Marvin Stamm (tp)

Eddie Bert (tb)

Joe Henderson (ts)

Reggie Lucas (el-g)

Gordon Edwards (el-b)

Ronnie Lito (d)

Bernard Barber, Eric Bruce, Michael "Babatunde" Olatunji, Kehinde Stewart (African d)

Michael "Babatunde" Olatunji (African d, vo)

Stacy Edwards (cowbell)

Brett Brown, Charles Payne (shekere, African d)

Akwasiba Atigbi, Erroll Edwards, Lady Oluoju Walquer (vo)

 

Tracks

1. Soul Makossa

2. Takuta

3. Masai

4. Dominira

5. O-Wa

 

 

 

And is that possibly Ronnie Zito instead of Ronnie Lito?

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Never heard of it, but damn, sounds interesting!! The main Joe Henderson discography says...

Date: 1973

Location: New York City

Label: Paramount

Those of us in the U.S. (I think just the U.S.) can listen/stream the entire thing here (and legally, I think): http://free.napster.com/view/album/index.html?id=12070183

No review on the AMG, but it is listed (and supposedly it was reissued on CD in 2004).

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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Ok....there's been better, there's been worse...but there's enough crosscurrents-of-the-time at work here to probably be of interest to some for at least a hearing or two...at times I'm thinking that if Miles really wanted to have been making "commercial" music in the early 70s, it might've sounded like this...and I think Eddie Bert plays a trombone solo w/a wah-wah pedal. I kid you not!

Tell you what, though...those grooves do not stop! If only what was on top would have been as directed...

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And Joe...Joe rides the groove, even as he's mixed all weird early 70s reverbus maximus, pulledicuticus WAAAAAY back in the mixicus...bummer.

Marvin Stamm sounds good. Marvin Stamm always souds good. Hey.

Lovin' it here. I'm sure the glass is half empty for some, but it's WAY half FULL here!!!

Yeah, I know waht you mean...I'm just hearing Joe going all aout over these grooves, and Iit's only in my inmagination, but I can go the full route too, once I get over what I want to hear...

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I once pulled a copy of this from a 1 Deutschmark cutout bin. It's nice, Joe blows well, Marvin too, and the drummers beat them drums as enthusiastically as it can get. If you dig a jazz jam on top of African drums, you'll dig this. The title tune was an attempt to profit from Dibango's success, of course.

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Yeah, I think the secret weapon here is Reggie Lucas, actually...for real.

70s Miles, y'all...more and more it proves to be one of a few places where The New New began. Maybe that's why Teo rescued it from oblivion?

I just wonder...how did this thing stay so obscure all these decades.

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  • 4 years later...
  • 5 years later...

I just picked up a used copy of this on CD(!!:o) on ebay for $30 (ouch!!).  But to be honest, I never really thought this REALLY existed on CD until I opened up the package in my mailbox barely an hour ago.

I've had it on vinyl for over 5 years, but I've had my eyes out for this on CD for going on 10 years!!  It's NOT (and has never been) listed on CD on Discogs, and the only place I've ever seen/found any reference on-line is one lonely Amazon listing, and a few Japanese sites -- but the Amazon is (and has always been) just 1-2 lonely 3rd-party sellers who wanted like $100 for it (give or take).  BTW, if you're looking for the listing on Amazon, just search for "Olatunji Soul" (leave out the "Makossa") -- which is also how you get to what I presume is the legit(?) mp3 downloads for this thing too.

The CD packaging has that look about it that just screams "I'm a bootleg" like those dodgy "Black Jazz" UK reissues from maybe 10-15 years ago (and/or maybe a few dodgy "Strata East" or "Tribe" reissues have looked similar too).  But it *IS* on a silver-disc, and it sounds great (I'm not hearing any surface noise, so I don't think it's sourced from an LP), tracks up perfectly every time, the whole kit and kaboodle.  Packaging is pretty primitive, and the repro of the cover looks like a somewhat faded LP cover (exactly like the image down below from an Amazon listing for the LP, down to all the same wear marks, every last one)...

God damn, I love this album.  Joe's all over this thing, but I think Jim's right (up above), the real secret sauce is Reggie Lucas.  I'm already on my second spin since I got the CD barely an hour ago.  I had a burn of this thing 9-10 years ago (no idea what happened to it), and on vinyl the last 5 years -- but nice(r) to have it on CD finally, even if it's a little dubious.

 

81o9lYyiZHL._SS500_.jpg

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  • 5 months later...
On ‎7‎/‎3‎/‎2009 at 3:19 PM, JSngry said:

"Soul Makossa" was a hit song for Manu Dubango, & spawned a slew of covers, but this album...not famous at all that I know of.

So somewhere I could have sworn I read 'somewhen' (eons ago), that the song "Soul Makossa" spawned a slew of covers specifically because the song was never copyrighted (or copyrighted properly), or something like that.

All I remember is that the song was considered 'Public Domain' from the git go.  Does that ring any bells for anyone?

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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